Established in 1983, the RNBP is run and funded by the federal government. The main office, in Mexico City, formulates all education and literacy programs for the entire network and provides each local library with its entire book collection, furniture, and equipment, as well as the outreach material and training for librarians. Local governments cover salaries for the personnel and allocate some extra funding, but there is no national standard when it comes to a public library budget.

Census statistics show that each public library in Mexico is visited by an average of 25 users a day, most of them students. Historically, the public library system has been linked to national education policies that make it mandatory for school children to visit libraries. However, this policy has transformed the library from a place to read for leisure to a place to get information only.

At first blush such a system certainly sounds different than a public library system in the United States. Whereas libraries in the U.S. would be more likely to favor localized policies regarding their collections and educational programs, Gastelum notes that the RNBP centralizes these functions in Mexico City. And whereas many libraries in the U.S. have taken efforts to promote themselves as a community plaza or gathering point as well as a library, Gastelum suggests the RNBP is specifically more of an information hub. The RNBP’s website doesn’t look like a website for a public library in the U.S. either — it is more of a place to find information about the system, rather than a place to search the system’s holdings or interact with a librarian.

What causes these differences? Gastelum quotes Katya Butrón at El Colegio de México, who says that “Most patrons have a negative perception of a library as an uncomfortable and uninviting space, a place for duty instead of pleasure.” Gastelum continues that

According to Butrón, attending a library is not part of Mexican culture. Even when the heavy governmental presence is not obvious for patrons, “the popular feeling is that libraries are just like any other of the many inefficient public services, ” she explains.

Authorities within the Mexican government are aware of this challenge, and have responded with a national literacy program (“Hacia un País de Lectores,” or “Towards a Country of Readers,” begun in 2001 by President Vicente Fox) and the construction of a new central library in Mexico City. This library, the Biblioteca de México José Vasconcelos, is in Gastelum’s words

…The “brain” or mother branch of all public libraries in Mexico. All the branches in the country’s 32 states will be connected electronically to this main branch, which hosts the country’s largest collection. Currently featuring half a million books, the building will eventually house 1.5 million volumes. Designed to serve 15,000 users a day, the 125,000-square-foot building by Mexican architect Alberto Kalach features 750 computers with free Internet access.

While this does sound like an enviable project, Butrón argues that a library like the Vasconcelos library represents the wrong approach to building a national interest in public libraries. She calls for a more localized approach, with more diversity of materials between different branch libraries within the system. The Digital Divide has also been a factor, with librarians in more remote parts of Mexico (and by extension less Internet access) saying a project like this does little to serve the needs of their patrons.

With this situation in mind, Gastelum calls for “a much needed dialogue” on the direction of librarianship in Mexico. She notes annual conferences put on by Asociación Mexicana de Bibliotecarios (AMBAC), Mexico’s equivalent of the American Library Association. Steven Kerchoff, Information Resource Officer for public affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and library advocate, notes that at these conferences

[Mexican librarians] talk about outreach, they talk about advocacy, how to promote their library services to users and to people who are in a position to make decisions about funding… Library advocacy has been a hot issue in the States for a while and it’s now becoming really important in Mexico.

Challenges like these will be a part of any dialogue on future directions for Mexican libraries (just like they will be a part of any dialogue on future directions for public libraries in many countries). Time will tell how these issues and the dialogue they create play out, but both Butrón and Hortensia Lobato, Vice President of AMBAC, are optimistic that Mexican libraries and librarians will continue to integrate themselves into the bedrock of Mexican culture, both as a place to find information, and as a place to strengthen a local community.

Going through the archives of the excellent Global Voices citizen journalism website, I saw this post by Renata Avila. Renata describes a pair of projects underway in Guatemala — one developing library services for children, and the other implementing technology in Guatemalan schools.

…A charity that manages and stocks children’s libraries. These libraries are operated by parents and the community in support of local public and private schools to help girls and boys discover that learning is part of their lives. We believe in education in its broadest sense, where books are at the heart of an array of creative and artistic projects that engage children in a love of learning.

Edulibre’s website is written in Spanish, but Renata provides a translation of their mission statement:

Edulibre is a project by volunteers, professionals and students wishing to improve the access to technology for elementary school kids. Each of them gives their time by helping in different areas of the non- profit project.

Did you know that Americans do not have the largest social networking communities in the world? According to market research by Ipsos, America comes in fifth place in terms of number of people connected to a social network – South Korea comes in first. According to Ipsos,

Leading all other markets in its love affair with social networking is South Korea, as half (49%) of all adults in this country have visited at least one of these websites in the past, while over half of all online adults have visited a social networking website in the past 30 days… In comparison, about one in five American adults (24%) have ever visited a social networking website.

The chart they include is the best part of this announcement. It points to South Korea and Brazil as being the most active social networkers, with China and Mexico closer to the U.S. but still more active than American social networkers. (additional reports about these findings here, here, and here).

Furthermore, According to research by comScore, a company that measures Internet use statistics, different services gain and maintain popularity in different regions of the world. While social networking in the U.S. is dominated by MySpace and FaceBook, Latin and South America (Brazil in particular) primarily use Orkut, and the Asia/Pacific region uses Friendster first and foremost, and Orkut as a numerically solid alternative. As the comScore press release notes,

MySpace.com (62 percent) and Facebook.com (68 percent) attract approximately two-thirds of their respective audiences from North America. That said, each has already amassed a large international visitor base and both appear poised to continue their global expansion. Bebo.com has a particularly strong grasp on Europe, attracting nearly 63 percent of its visitors from that region, while Orkut is firmly entrenched in Latin America (49 percent) and Asia-Pacific (43 percent). Friendster also attracts a significant proportion of its visitors (89 percent) from the Asia-Pacific region.

And ironically, all the companies in the comScore study are American. Some have just wound up being more popular in other countries besides America. But are there social networking services born in other countries, which cater to people in those countries? Absolutely.

Danah Boyd has provided a (partial) list of foreign social networks, as well as the languages in which they are published and the number of profiles each has. She lists

– StudiVZ (Germany). StudiVZ has mirror sites in French, Italian, and Polish, as well as a Spanish language version targeting South America, but no English version.

Her commenters have listed still more services – one pointed in particular to this list, which lists many non-American services. All told I’ve looked at perhaps 30 to 50 non-American social networking services, some of whom claim tens of millions of users.

And yes, foreign social networks can look different from American ones, and people of different nationalities may use them differently from people in the U.S. or discuss topics that wouldn’t reach an American audience. For example Hevre, an Israeli site, looks like this:

La Zona, a music industry oriented social network maintained by MTV Latin America, looks much closer to American social networks than Hevre does, but even then (to my mind at least) this site has a distinctly more Latin American appearance than a U.S.-based social network.

In terms of how people in different countries use social networks differently than people in the U.S., Forrester Research’s Vice President and Principal Analyst Charlene Li wrote a report on Mixi that noted certain cultural differences in how Japanese people network with each other. I found these characteristics of particular interest:

– Invitation-only participation. Most of the Mixi users I spoke with said that they use Mixi only to connect with their friends. The most used feature – the “diary”. They update their own and frequently check their friends’ diaries. While essentially a blog, many users don’t consider it one, as it’s really only for their friends.

– Anonymous profiles. As a rule, the Japanese don’t use their real names on their profiles. While this is also often true in North America, I found it interesting that users made it a point to tell me that they didn’t use their real names. Also, very few of the Mixi users I spoke with said that they had ever interacted with people they did not know, the complete opposite of the behavior usually found on MySpace.

– Heavily mobile-based. Several users told me that text messaging updates actually facilitated participation as they were more comfortable writing than engaging in face-to-face conversations.

– Structure. Unlike MySpace, Mixi is highly structured with minimal ability to change the layout. The users I spoke with liked the structure, as it created certainty about how users were to interact with each other.

Writing in the International Herald Tribune, James Shih echoes Charlene’s thoughts about the structure of Mixi in this article. He notes that

MySpace, for example, has often been described as a “free-for-all” in which members can easily create multiple profiles, add their own programming and post other kinds of media, like pictures, music and videos… Mixi of Japan, however, has a much more structured approach. A person can join only if invited by current members. Personal profiles are based only on text, except for three photos (premium service allows more). Surprisingly, users do not seem to mind. In fact, most members do not post pictures of themselves, opting instead for photos of celebrities, scenery or pets.

This article continues by discussing Cyworld, which it says blends elements of virtual worlds (such as Second Life) with social networking:

Cyworld is yet another story. Personal profiles are dominated by the Miniroom, a 400- pixel-by-200-pixel space that users can decorate with digital furniture, wallpaper and other objects, much as they would decorate real rooms. An avatar, or a character representation referred to as Minime, is also in the room, and the user can change Minime’s clothes, hair and facial expression. In fact, users pay real money to buy the various virtual objects to spice up the lives of their Minimes.

By comparison to Japanese Mixi users, Chinese people are more willing to network with people they do not personally know – in fact they are even more willing to do this than American social networkers are. This chart from the eMarketer report I linked to above indicates that Chinese people are far more outgoing when it comes to social networking than their peers in Europe and the U.S., and the report itself adds that

Among adult Chinese broadband users, 80% had discussed hobbies or interests online via a social network, and 78% had used a social network to meet new people. Less than half of users in most other markets surveyed said they had used a social network for either of those purposes.

The internationalization of social networking has caught the attention of American services as well. MySpace in particular has branched out to other countries. They have dedicated this entire page to their global network, and generated media buzz such as this Victoria Shannon article in the Herald Tribune. But as to how successful these transplanted networks will or will not be among different demographic segments of the world’s population, Bob Ivins of comScore has the most pertinent observation. He notes that

A fundamental aspect of the success of social networking sites is cultural relevance… Those doing well in certain regions are likely doing an effective job of communicating appropriately with those regions’ specific populations. As social networking continues to evolve, it will be exciting to see if networks are able to cross cultural barriers and bring people from different corners of the globe together in fulfilling the truest ideals of social networking.

So I’ve just thrown a bunch of information at you. Now it’s your turn – I’d love to have your thoughts as a comment. Have you encountered the international sphere in your own social networking activities? If so, did you encounter any cultural differences you found particularly striking? If you met someone from a different country through your network, did s/he talk about his/her home country? If so, what did s/he say?